Final steps

[st_ratagem]

Loki had spent the last hour or two before sunset preparing, and the first hour afterward. He’d taken ruthless advantage of the fact that the Inn staff was desperate to give people towels and had carefully interwoven the. On the floor such that there was no chance of getting at the actual carpet below without effort. He’d selected a dagger from his collection - a very old one that he hadn’t actively used since childhood, one of a pair given to him by his mother - and sharpened it to an almost perfect edge. He’d opened up the balcony door to let the early-winter night chill in. He’d even out together a little aid kit (disinfectant, pads, bandages, needle and thread) for afterward.

In many ways, the hardest part was settling on the towels with the in-etched staff resting in front of him and forcing Odin’s enchantment away, knowing that he wouldn’t be allowing himself to go back to normal possibly for hours. And that, as soon as Thor arrived with a bowl and his hands, it would all have a witness.

Comments

[st_ratagem]

“Did he grab you by the leg and slam you headfirst into the ground repeatedly?” Loki mimed it a little with his free hand, carefully enough that the sliced hand Thor was tending didn’t move. “Because I can tell you that would delight me. He did the same to me, you know, and I’m really not above enjoying someone else taking my punishments.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Consider it a surprise for the future," Thor says, neglecting to give an answer. He reaches for a bandage. "Something for you to look forward to."

[st_ratagem]

“He did! Lovely. If he hadn’t you’d have denied it.” Thor was touchy enough about insisting that he’d won that fight. “I imagine you don’t lay stunned for several minutes as I did, though. No surprise, you’ve always been tougher than me.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Different strengths," Thor says, wrapping Loki's hand up with great care. "I can think of plenty of time when your tricks might prove more valuable in battle than my brute strength."

[st_ratagem]

“I wasn’t fishing.” It was nothing more than the truth, what Thor said, sometimes tricks and sneakers worked well. “You wouldn’t have survived my time with Thanos, I’m nearly sure. And from what I hear two weeks with this Grandmaster wouldn’t have gone well for you either.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"You're probably right," Thor says, finishing off the bandage. "I would have probably fought him and gotten myself killed." At least if Thanos' strength now were any fair comparison to his strength then. Truth be told, Thor wasn't nearly as strong as he was now.

"The Grandmaster probably would have just enjoyed seeing me put up a fight. I seriously doubt he would have let any permanent harm come to me." He had let him live even after his champion defeated him. Then again, he's fairly sure that he was more than happy to kill him when he lifted Banner/Hulk from his clutches.

[st_ratagem]

"Madmen aren't that predictable, brother. Sometimes we enjoy a fight, sometimes we just crush the opposition." Thor wasn't used to navigating muddy waters that way, people were all one thing or all the other to him, it sometimes seemed. "Survival is often a matter of smiling and flattering, and keeping what you're up to to yourself. And in my experience you're really only good at that first one, most of the time."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor does indeed have the smiling part down most of the time. "Are you offering me a lesson, then?" he asks as he begins to pack the kit back up.

[st_ratagem]

Loki had to laugh. "Would you want one?" He considered for a moment, tilting his head. "I don't know how useful it would be or how to start, but I'm willing to try."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor looks ceilingward.

"Who would I even practice on?"

[st_ratagem]

"I don't know, your fiancé?" If Thor was going to need to be able to lie to anyone anytime soon, it was bound to be Stark, in Loki's view anyway. "Or Valkyrie, I suppose. She'd almost certainly know to blame me for any annoyance you cause her."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor blinks.

"Why would I need to practice lying to either one of them?"

[st_ratagem]

“You need the practice on someone and I wouldn’t fall for it.” Seemed perfectly reasonable.

[st_ormbreaker]

"All it's bound to do is make Tony made and annoy Valkyrie," he says. "I don't want to piss off either one of them."

[st_ratagem]

“Valkyrie, then. She’ll know to blame me.” Loki nodded. “You can practice, it won’t fall on you.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor thinks tricking Valkryie will probably be a few thousand times more difficult than Tony to trick. It wasn't that Stark was a fool - it was that Valkyrie seemed to see everything coming at her from a million miles away.

"What's my first lesson."

[st_ratagem]

“We’ll start with the easiest part of lying.” It would also be the easiest part for Thor. “Always include something true, even if it’s only in your head. That way, you can believe what you’re saying enough to sell it. So just lie to Valkyrie. Any lie. Make up things that never happened, try to start some kind of rumor.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Give me a lie, Loki."

[st_ratagem]

“That’s not how it works! My lies won’t work for you, you don’t know the true part.” It wasn’t really that difficult, was it? “Tell you what, try me first. Pre-practice.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor frowns, frustrated by how lies don't come easily to him. True, he mentioned earlier that it wasn't his strength, but coming up with a lie is proving more difficult than Thor imagined.

"I'm not like you," he mumbles after a minute. "I don't go make up lies on a whim."

[st_ratagem]

“Stop worrying about whatever it is you’re worrying about. This is the easiest thing in the universe, I promise. Probably a lie, but an encouraging one. “Listen. Did you know Lady Sif used to be blonde?”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor's brows furrow.

"No, because she wasn't."

[st_ratagem]

“Of course she was! She had the most beautiful red-gold hair, everyone agreed, and she was very proud of it.” A whopper, confidently told, tended to confuse people, they doubted and checked their memory on purpose. “Until she made me angry - some insult or other - and I crept into her room while she slept, shaved it all off, and burned it. Remember that?” Obviously not.

Loki didn’t wait for a response. “She was absolutely enraged, the more so because it wouldn’t grow back. Mother intervened and insisted I fix what I’d done, but then as now I was no healer. I also couldn’t find the right color of gold, apparently. So instead I went to Niflheim through one of those paths I know,” a truth, he did know a path to Niflheim, “and took a shadow. There were so many, no one would miss one. I made that shadow into hair and attached it to her head, again while she slept because I didn’t fancy getting stabbed by her.”

Loki nodded mock solemnly. “That trick ended up on me, though, because everyone agreed the dark hair suited her much better, and now no one even remembers her lovely gold hair.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor looks at Loki, befuddled, lips slightly parted while he tries to dig into the recesses of his memory for anything remotely resembling this tale. It sounds like something he'd do for the reasons he claimed to do it, but...

He knew some or part of it had to be a lie and he couldn't figure out which bits were true and which weren't, so he chose not to believe any of it. Still, there's one thing he's certain is a lie:

"For the record, I think you would fancy being stabbed by her."

[st_ratagem]

“Probably yes, now. Then, no. I was worried about lethal stabbing.” Sif probably would be more inclined to lethal stabbing, still, but Loki cared less. “But here’s the thing, brother. Any human, or the Jane here, would believe that story. It sounds exactly like something I’d both do and brag about. Even you sort of believe it, and you know better! So just... make something up. It's practice, I don’t have to believe you.”